[ Jojo Fox ] :
The beginnings of the song "Grapestock" were in actuality pretty bland.
No great epiphany or anything. It was 4th of July weekend 2005 and I was
sick with the flu or something. Pretty miserable. Tom & I were at home
doing NOT MUCH. Even the dogs were bored. We did grill some food, but
mostly I permanently couched it or staggered out to the lounge chair in
the backyard for some nourishing rays of sun (which usually resulted in
diffuse sweating and weakness, so I didn't continue this for very long.)
Later on for no reason in particular, the lyrics started coming into my
head. I grabbed a pencil. I got the 1st verse and chorus quick, then was
stuck on the 2nd verse. So I cheated a little. I was going to simply
look at the song titles on Moby Grape's 1st album for inspiration,
something to kick start myself, but then I had a weirder idea: Take all
of the song titles, write them down, throw them into a Moby Soup, so to
speak, and blindly pull them out and string them together, and see what
kinda sense they made. Didn't some of those beatnik poets in the days of
Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg do stuff like this? I was snickering at the
thought that it would actually work, but it sort of did. That was how the
2nd verse came to be.

I tried the song out with Larry Hosford's gang at a couple of Thursday
Windjammer shows (letting them know this was gonna be played for the Grape
Nuts who showed up to Olema). No sweat. They slipped right into it.
Then (as they say), Grapestock happened. End of July 2005. Olema,
California. We played it at the Old Western Saloon on Saturday night.

OH: To rewind to a few hours prior: On Saturday morning (well, it was
probably closer to noon), back at the campground, Deb asked me to play it
for her, give her a preview. So I grabbed my acoustic guitar and did.
That was neat. She had me play it again for Debbie and I think Barbara.
Soon after, John Darsey wandered over, then Bill Morse, and pretty soon we
had a big circle, and we launched ourselves into a day-long jam there at
the campground. Ahhh....those were the days...hehe

So to wrap this up, we got back home from Grapestock the event and there's
a post from Bill Morse, suggesting we all record the song. I sent him my
vocal and acoustic guide tracks, shipped myself and Tom off to Merry Old
England for a few weeks, and the rest is history...we arrived home and a
few weeks later, voila! There was the completed version of Grapestock on
my computer, courtesy of Bill M. He can pick up the thread here about all
the "real" work that went into creating such a fun, snappy version of the
tune. (That sax solo rocks, btw!)

While were we jamming at Grapestock, Chris Christensen and I got to
talking about doing a "remote" collaboration. JoJo's song seemed like
the perfect opportunity to put it to the test.

I have an online storage account, Streamload.com, which allows me to
store large WAV files, and allows others to upload them and download
them. So I asked JoJo to record her vocal and rhythm guitar,
accompanied by a metronome. These were to be used as guides while we
assembled the rest of the song, and then the final step would be to
get her keeper tracks. She uploaded her WAV files to Streamload. I
downloaded them, and imported them into my recording software (Logic
Pro - for Macs).

I made a quick composite mix, and posted it on my Streamload site.
Chris downloaded it, imported it into his recording software, and
recorded his drum tracks. Which he then Streamloaded to me. I
imported his drums, then overdubbed the 12-string guitar in the
intro, the bass, organ, and sax.

I did a stereo mix of everything so far, and posted it to Streamload.
I asked some musical friends, who had each appeared on at least one
of the Mo' Grape tributes, to help me flesh out the recording.

John Lisiecki contributed the guitar solos. Peter Schindelman did the
vocal harmonies. Eric Elmer blew the harp. (Eric appeared on "Even
Mo' Grape", as lead vocalist on the Bridgeburners' version of "Hey
Grandma".)

They Streamloaded their parts to me, I did a semi-final mix, then
back to JoJo for her "keeper" vocal and guitar. When she sent those
back to me, I did the FINAL mix, and I'm very proud of the way it all
came together. Almost like we were playing in the same room!

Bill

WHAT'S TO CHOOSE (Lewis) (2:02)
I AM NOT WILLING (Lewis) (4:21)
MOVE DOWN TOWN (Mosley) (3:33)
performed by On The Edge
John Chris Christensen

"Move Down Town"
Laura Christensen - All background vocals and "Disco Attitude"
John "Chris" Christensen - lead vocals and all instruments
All songs recorded, mixed, and mastered at Mad Labs Studio in Lakewood Ca,
during March and April 2006.

Produced, engineered, and mangled by John "Chris" Christensen with
significant help by secondary arrangers, ears and back-seat drivers; Bill
Morse, Damien Smith, Eric Bradfield, and The Lauras

Special thanks to Paul Gouldhawke, Bill Morse, Connie & Bob, JoJo, and all
you other Grapestockers for keeping the flame burning. Thanks to Skip,
Bob, Jerry, Peter, and Don for their continued inspiration with the gift
that keeps on giving.

Special, "Special Thanks" to my wife Margie who makes each day better than
the one before. Why God blessed me with her I'll never understand.

It wasn't until I was 90% done that I realized I actually did a different
version of "Looper" then the official release on Truly Fine Citizen. I
should have
known by the inclusion of the word "Alt" in the title, that this was an
early/odd take.

Then again, when I heard the other "official" version, I hated it. It was
slow and bluesy, and had none of the melodic charm.

Then after all of that, I heard a live version of it that was based on
the "Alt" version I covered, and it was amazing - the tempo was really fast,
and they just ripped through it. It reminded me of what you hear when you're
in the presence of a real good bunch of musicians - songs changed from night
to night based on how they were feeling/thinking. Where's that today?

Thanks for letting me be
involved in the project, by the way - it's a great way to be introduced
to a great band's music.

As far as credits, it's a home recording, and I'm playing and
> singing (for better or worse) everything.

Instrumental version - all instruments by Al Newell, aka The Rockin'
Al's

I was tempted to do a cover of Truly Fine Citizen for the earlier
tributes, but couldn't quite peg the lyrics. Finally, I decided that the
melody was so strong in this song that it would probably hold up as an
instrumental, and found it really lent itself to the double lead guitar
thing. It's such a great tune.

This is an updated version of the first (vinyl) recording of The Grape
Escape. It originally had Jerry Miller on lead guitar as our special
guest and was backed with a Miller/CJ composition "She Was Only
Fifteen"
Copies are still available thru CJ.
This version was to be included in "Project Grape Escape -
A Vine Way To Escape" on Taxim Records.
Bill Champlin recorded this song as a demo in the early 80's.

SWEET RIDE (3:46)(Mosley) performed by The Power
Munchkins

Originally a side project of the California Navels (viz. liner notes for
Forever Mo' Grape), The Power Munchkins has evolved into a roving-or
raving-or both-band of musical lunatics that has performed tributes to
Skip Spence, the Small Faces and Steppenwolf in dives throughout the
greater(?) Los Angeles area. This here particular recording features the
stellar vocals of Amanda Mullins (Sounds of Asteroth, Petra Haden's
Sellouts) and blog-goddess Tracy Landecker, the whompin' drums of
blushing-bride-to-be Tammy Bumann, the dulcet bass tones of Mark Fletcher
(California Navels), the meandering guitar of Larry Jacobson (nobody in
particular), and the deluxe keyboard stylings of Josh Gordon (Jason
Faulkner, Albert King). It was recorded and mixed by Josh on his very own
fab gear (which is far too complicated for this writer's simple brain to
understand), with overdubs lobbed in the general direction of an eMac
running that GarageBand program the kids love so much nowadays. Isn't
modern technology just the gnat's eyebrow?

One of my favorite tunes from the Grape body of work--a truly positive
song that's a reminder of our brief and fragile existence here on
Earth.
Recording was at Twangtown Studios in Topanga, California, with Stephen
Patt on all instruments and vocals.
Dedication is to Skip Spence. Stephen Patt is an ex-Chambers Brother,
Ccurrently playing steel guitar in Southern California with the Eagles
tribute band The Long Run and his original roots rock group Twangtown.

Paul contacted me to ask about the two of us possibly covering another
song together for this tribute, and Land Of The Sun was the one we
settled on. I knew of the song but didn't have a copy here at home to
work from, so Jojo graciously sent me an MP3. (Thanks again, Jojo.)
I recorded the bass, drums and guitars here at home on my analog
4-track, then sent the tracks to Paul, who added the vocals at Lou's
studio. I really enjoying working up this arrangement of Skip and
Brian's song, and had a blast doing the recordings... (gave me a chance
to get my old Boss DD2 digital delay pedal out of the closet... not to
mention the wah-wah...sigh, I love old technology.)

Once again, many many thanks to Bill Morse for continuing to make this
possible for all of us.

I thought Land Of The Sun had a lot of potential, and when Al gave the
opposable thumbs up we began our latest recording adventure...

This song was originally recorded by Skip Spence and Brian Vaughan in
December of 1995. It was intended for the X-Files soundtrack album. More
on that over here:
[ Seeing Skip Spence ]
Brian deciphered the lyrics and emailed them to me, I added a few more
lyrics (all written by Skip) and ventured out to Lou Hoover's studio at
the end of March, where I did the vocal.

This time around I chose some songs
I've been playing around with when the relating albums were released but
weren't added to my songbook until I got access to the Grape's on-line
lyrics some five years ago. Three-Four is the exception to this
rule: I've
often sang it accapella when the microphones had to be soundchecked before
a gig, matter of fact: together with Tim Buckley’s "Song To The
Siren" it's
probably my fave soundcheck song ;^) The other three are just so
much fun to play that there wasn't really any selection process
necessary,
I just love to play them tunes !
Peace, Martin